Father’s alcohol incidence and its effects on behavioral health of children: evidence from Attappady, India

This paper studies about the incidence and intensity of alcohol consumption among the Scheduled Tribe men belonging to the Attappady block and analyses whether the prevalence of alcohol consumption affects the behavioural health of their children. A clustered survey was adopted across 37 hamlets of 192 in Attappady for the period of July 2019 to September 2019. A sample of 492 men were obtained in studying the alcohol prevalence issue and from this sample, men who had children within the age of 3-12 were chosen for examining the second research question. From 298 households, 474 children were considered for analyzing the second research objective. An alcohol supplement and a Child behaviour supplement: Behavioural Problem Index, was used for the household survey. Qualitative information through Key Informant Interviews and Focus Group Discussion was gathered to get more clarity on the issue. The main results indicates that the incidence of alcohol consumption in Attappady is higher (75%) compared to the incidence rate all over the state of Kerala. However, the factors predicting the incidence come from outside the model. The magnitude of pure alcohol consumption was above the State average and was within the range of 4.9 litres to 7.4 litres. The results on paternal alcohol use and its effect on child behaviour health show that an increase in alcohol use by the father has resulted in an increased behavioural health issues among their children by 0.63 points. In addition, the regression results show that with increased paternal alcohol incidence, the internalizing score which speaks of a withdrawn behaviour of the child increased by 0.56 points. For other input variables, when physical violence endured by the mother was brought to picture, this variable captured the effects of alcohol consumption by the father. Results on physical violence show that, when the mother of the child was physically abused, the child behavioural health issues increased by 0.62 points. Witnessing these kinds of events made them vulnerable to internalizing behaviour. The overall results indicates that there is alcohol prevalence in Attappady and father’s alcohol consumption affects the child behavioural health.